It's All Downhill from Here

by P. J. Night

  “Do you think your parents are really going to go through with all this?” Sophie asked in the darkness and then yawned.

  “I hope not,” Maggie replied. She was feeling a little better than she had when they arrived, but she wondered how she would actually deal with the move, if it happened. All the fears she had about living way up in the isolated mountains and leaving everything and everyone she knew filled her with anxiety. “But they do seem determined to do this. I can only hope something makes them change their minds.”

  “Maybe we can check out the ski slopes tomorrow,” Sophie offered. “That would be fun.”

  “Maybe,” Maggie said, trying hard not to sound so negative all the time. “Anyway, thanks for coming with me, Soph. At least I have someone to talk to. I don’t know what I’d do if the only one I could confide in was Simon. He’s about as helpful to talk to as this canopy. And come to think of it, I might get more intelligent answers from the canopy.”

  Sophie didn’t reply.

  “Soph?”

  Maggie heard gentle snores coming from the other bed. She smiled. “I guess you really were tired,” she said softly. Then she turned onto her back and stared up into the darkness.

  Her mind raced, searching for some reason to feel positive about this potential move. She struggled to find one. What if nobody likes me at my new school? What if I’ll always be the new kid? What if—

  A sudden noise startled Maggie. She listened closely and heard what sounded like a voice.

  “Shhh . . .” She heard a soft whisper.

  “Soph, is that you?”

  But Maggie was greeted only by Sophie’s soft breathing.

  “Shhh . . .” Maggie heard the whisper again, this time a little louder, coming from just outside the bedroom door.

  “If Simon is playing some kind of joke on me . . . ,” said Maggie, tossing off the covers, throwing on her slippers, and tiptoeing quietly toward the bedroom door.

  Grasping the brass knob, she turned it and flung the door open.

  No one was there.

  Switching on a flashlight, Maggie headed for the stairs.

  “Follow me . . .” The voice came again, this time from the bottom of the stairs.

  Stepping softly but quickly down the stairs, Maggie swept the flashlight beam all around. The downstairs was dark. Everyone else had gone to bed. She was alone, and she was getting scared all over again.

  “Over here,” she heard. She pointed her flashlight toward the front door, and the beam illuminated a face. The face. The face of the man she had seen in the window when she first arrived. Deep creases ran the length of his leathery, wrinkled face. Thin wisps of white hair dangled randomly from his mostly bald head.

  “Who are you?” Maggie whispered tensely.

  “Shhh . . . ,” the old man whispered again, placing a single bony, gnarled finger to his lips. Then he opened the front door and stepped outside.

  Fighting every instinct to do the opposite, Maggie followed the man to the front door and stepped out into the night.

  She could barely see through a swirling wall of snow and wind that assaulted her, shoving her back against the closed door. Shining her flashlight into the blinding whiteness, hoping to catch a glimpse of the man, she saw only the flashlight beam reflected back into her eyes.

  “Where are you?” Maggie demanded. “Show yourself and tell me what you want!”

  Fear mounted inside her. She now knew for certain that an old man had been hiding in the house. And now he had lured her outside. But for what purpose?

  “I’m not afraid of you!” Maggie shouted, lying. Her hand trembled, the flashlight beam shaking in the swirling snow.

  Again she got no answer.

  Maybe I can go back inside and lock him out, she thought.

  She grabbed the doorknob, only to discover that the front door had locked behind her. She was trapped outside in a raging blizzard with a man who seemed to be able to appear and disappear at will!

  Chapter 4

  Maggie’s eyes flew open, and she clutched the covers. As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she looked around the cozy room.

  It was just a dream! she thought gleefully. Time to go back to sleep. There was no old man in the house. I didn’t get locked outside. Mom and Dad were right. This is all in my imagination.

  But try as she might, Maggie could not fall back to sleep. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the face of the man from her dream.

  After about half an hour, she slipped quietly from bed, grabbed a flashlight, and headed downstairs. Glancing at a grandfather clock in the hallway, she saw that it was three in the morning . . . if the clock was still right, that is.

  Retracing her steps from that evening down the long, cobweb-filled hallway, Maggie arrived at the room where she had seen the lit candle. Opening the door slowly, she shone her flashlight into the room, then stepped in.

  Everything looked exactly as it had when she had last been in there. Crossing the room, Maggie came to the table where the candle still sat. Its wick was still pristine and never used, just as it had been when Sophie and her dad saw it.

  “I really don’t think I was dreaming when I saw the lit candle,” she mumbled to herself. “There has to be a logical explanation.”

  Maggie swept the flashlight beam across the many shelves of books, running floor to ceiling, across the entire room—all except for one wall. The wall nearest the small table, was made up of a series of wooden panels and no shelves.

  Maggie explored the seams between sections of the paneled wall. She ran her hand along the smooth but dusty panels.

  I’ve watched too many mystery movies, she thought, searching for some clue. I’m not sure what I’m expecting here.

  Her fingers came to rest on a raised square corner of a panel. As she started to move her hand away, she felt the square move slightly. Gripping it tightly, she rotated the square. It turned smoothly, like a doorknob.

  The panel above the square knob slid open with the grinding, scraping sound of old, dry wood moving along a rusty metal track.

  “Bingo!” she cried. “A secret passage. I knew it!”

  With her flashlight leading the way, Maggie stepped through the opening. She found herself in a narrow passageway, so constricted that she had to turn sideways to continue. After a few yards, the passageway took a sharp right turn, then ended abruptly at a wall. Hanging on the wall was a portrait of a young man done in oil, labeled SAMUEL WHARTON.

  “Could that be Old Man Wharton?” Maggie wondered aloud. “The guy who owned the house and died last year?”

  She peered closely at the face in the painting. It looked similar to, but not quite the same as, the face she had seen in the window and the face of the man who’d terrified her in the dream she’d just had.

  Maggie reached up and touched the picture frame. It shifted slightly to the right—and the wall it was hanging on slid open, revealing the other end of the secret passage. It was a secret passage within a secret passage!

  She stepped through the opening and found herself in a small bedroom, containing a single bed, a narrow dresser, and one standing floor lamp. Additional portraits hung on the wall, all of the same subject.

  “Someone sure was obsessed with this Samuel guy,” she said softly, feeling for some reason that it was inappropriate to speak too loudly in this room. It almost felt like a shrine, a place that was very special to someone.

  Scattered beneath the portraits were old, broken pieces of ski equipment. Long wooden skis, leather straps for boots, primitive goggles.

  Fear suddenly gripped her. Whoever lit the candle, then replaced it with the new one, must have used this passageway! He could be in this room right now! she thought. Maggie spun around quickly, fully expecting to see someone standing behind her.

  She was alone.

  Retracing her steps, she stepped back into the passageway. She straightened out the picture, and the wall slid closed. Walking sideways back through the narrow passage, she
stepped through the open panel and out into the library. She twisted the square wooden knob, and the second panel slid shut.

  “So that’s how he did it,” she said once she was back in the library. “He hid in that secret room, then snuck in and switched the candles.”

  But who? Maggie wondered. Old Man Wharton is dead. Who is in this house with us?

  Hurrying back to her room, she quietly entered, locked the door, and slipped back into bed.

  Maggie tossed and turned until nearly dawn, then slept fitfully and for just a short while before the morning sun poured into her window, waking her up. Glancing over to the other bed, she saw that Sophie was already up and out of the room.

  Maggie rolled out of bed, threw on her clothes, and slouched down the stairs to the kitchen. She discovered that her mom had already driven to the small market in Piney Hill and picked up food for breakfast.

  Bacon sizzled in a metal skillet, making the musty old house smell like a real home. A big bowl of eggs sat ready to be dropped into a pan to be scrambled. An electric coffeepot percolated enthusiastically on the counter.

  “Good morning, Sleeping Beauty,” Mr. Kim teased his daughter. “Planning to sleep all day?”

  “Ha-ha, Dad,” Maggie said, groaning. “That’s so funny I forgot to laugh.”

  “Weak, Mags,” Simon said, shoving a piece of toast into his mouth. “The last time I heard that one I nearly fell off my dinosaur.”

  “Who’s ready for eggs?” Mrs. Kim interrupted.

  “Right here,” Simon said, holding out his plate.

  “Thanks, Mrs. Kim,” Sophie said, getting up to help serve the breakfast as Mrs. Kim went back to scrambling more eggs.

  “So, um, I had an interesting night,” Maggie began once everyone was seated around the table. “I was up most of the night, investigating the house.”

  “Ooh, investigating,” Simon echoed, unable to stifle a giggle. “What exactly were you investigating, Sherlock? How many cobwebs and dead bugs are in this house?”

  Maggie ignored him. “I couldn’t sleep, and I was still curious about that candle. I know I saw it burning, but then when we all looked again, it had been replaced.”

  Maggie’s parents exchanged a look.

  “Do you think I’m making this up?” she asked indignantly.

  “First the man in the window, now a mysterious candle that lights itself and then replaces itself,” Mrs. Kim said. “I don’t know whether it’s your imagination or if you’re making stuff up to try to scare us. I’m beginning to think you’d try to find any excuse to convince us not to live here.”

  “That is not true!” Maggie insisted. She might not want to move here, but she wasn’t a liar.

  “Well, all you did the whole car ride up here was complain,” Mrs. Kim continued. “You made a point of telling us all the reasons you didn’t want to live here, despite the fact that you had never even seen the place. How can we believe that you’re willing to give it a fair chance?”

  “And you’re the only one who has seen anything,” added Simon.

  Maggie scowled at him. It was just like Simon to take her parents’ side, especially when there was something he wanted—and Simon usually just wanted to ski.

  “You know what? Just forget it,” Maggie grumbled. She ate her eggs in silence, then got up and left the table. Sophie followed.

  “Your father and I are going outside to tour the grounds,” Mrs. Kim said. “Would you girls like to come?”

  “Not really,” Maggie replied sullenly.

  “I’ll go,” Simon said, jumping up from the table, grabbing his empty plate, and heading to the kitchen. “I want to check out those slopes.”

  “Great!” said Mr. Kim. “But no skiing today. We need to make sure it’s safe first.”

  As her parents and brother bundled up to head outside, Maggie led Sophie down the hallway they had explored the previous day.

  She stopped suddenly and turned to her best friend.

  “You know I’m not making all this up, right, Soph?” Maggie asked. “I mean, yes, I really don’t want to leave home and move here, but I’m not so selfish that I would make up crazy, impossible stories that no one would believe anyway, just to stop my parents from buying this house.”

  “I know that, Mags,” Sophie said, reaching out and squeezing her friend’s hand. “And I know you. You are not a liar. I’m as in the dark about all this as you are.”

  “Thanks, Soph.” Maggie paused and then continued. Even if her parents didn’t want to listen to her, she had to tell someone about what happened. “So, I had this really weird dream last night. It was so real. I was sure I was awake.”

  “What happened?”

  “It started in the room we slept in last night. You were asleep. I was so wired I couldn’t fall asleep. My mind was racing. Next thing I knew, I heard a whispered voice saying ‘shh.’

  “So I got out of bed and followed the voice downstairs. I saw an old man—the same old man I saw in the window when we arrived here. He opened the front door and stepped outside. I followed him out into a blizzard. I was superscared.

  “I couldn’t see a thing, so I decided to come back in, but the door was locked and I was stuck outside. That’s when I woke up.”

  “Sounds really scary, Mags,” Sophie said as they reached the library door at the end of the hall.

  “But what happened after I woke up was even scarier,” Maggie said. “That’s what I need to show you. Come on.”

  She opened the door, and the two friends stepped into the library for the first time in the daylight. They saw a serious-looking room of dark wooden shelves filled with dust-covered books. Plushy upholstered chairs sat in each corner accompanied by a stained-glass floor lamp.

  Maggie imagined spending a rainy Saturday afternoon curled up in one of those chairs with a good book and got a warm feeling for the first time since she’d arrived. Then she remembered all that had been going on since last night, and the warm feeling was replaced by the ever-more-familiar knot in her stomach.

  “So last night, after I woke up, I came back to this room,” she continued. “I knew what I saw with that candle, and I knew there had to be a logical explanation. I found it right there.”

  Maggie led Sophie over to the wood panel on the far wall. She grabbed the square wooden knob.

  “A secret passageway leading to a hidden room!”

  “No way!” said Sophie.

  “Way! Watch.”

  Maggie tried to turn the knob, which had moved so easily during the night. But this time, the knob didn’t budge.

  “Wait a minute,” she said, now gripping the knob with both hands. Again, it stood firm. “I swear, Soph, this knob turned last night. Then that panel slid open, and I walked down a secret passageway.”

  “Maybe you were still dreaming?” Sophie suggested. “You said the dream about being trapped outside felt so real. Maybe you didn’t wake up and get out of bed. Maybe you only dreamed that you did.”

  Maggie searched her memory, replaying the events of the dream and what had followed once she woke up—or at least, thought she woke up. Could the whole thing have been a dream?

  “Why don’t we check out the rest of the house, Mags?” Sophie asked, seeing her friend struggling to figure out what had happened to her.

  Maggie fought off her disappointment. She didn’t want to be mad at Sophie, her only ally in this miserable situation. And she realized that if the situation were reversed, she’d be having a lot of trouble believing Sophie.

  “Sure,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  Heading back down the hallway, they stopped at a door on the left. “Good as any,” Sophie said, throwing it open.

  The two stepped into what appeared to be a small storage room. A startled spider scurried up its web, vanishing into a hole in the ceiling. Boxes and suitcases were piled in tall stacks. On a small table in the center of the room sat a pile of old photographs.

  Maggie thumbed through the curling brown photos
of people who’d lived long ago.

  “Look at this one,” she said, handing it to Sophie. It was a shot of a man standing outside the Wharton Mansion holding a pair of skis.

  “Is this the guy you saw in the window and in your dream?” Sophie asked, trying to be supportive of her friend.

  “I’m not sure. It looks a bit like him, but . . .” Maggie suddenly recalled the paintings she had seen in the secret room. “No. It’s not him. It’s Samuel Wharton!”

  “Who?” Sophie asked.

  “I have no idea,” Maggie replied. “But I saw portraits of him hanging in that secret room.”

  After flipping through the rest of the photos, none of which provided any insight into what had happened during the night, Maggie and Sophie continued their exploration of the house. Mostly they saw old rooms in disrepair, lots of cobwebs, a whole bunch of spiders, and a mouse or two.

  None of this impressed Maggie or made her feel any happier about the prospect of living in this house. After a couple of hours more of exploring, Maggie heard the front door open, and an argument in progress entered the house.

  “But you know I’m an excellent skier. I can take care of myself!”

  “Simon, there are whiteout conditions out there,” Maggie heard her dad say as she and Sophie joined the now-frozen members of her family. “That’s why we came in.”

  “Hey, how was your outdoor tour?” Maggie asked, glad that she would not be the only one to argue with her parents this weekend.

  “The grounds are really beautiful,” Mrs. Kim said, shaking the snow off her down jacket and hood. “But the snow picked up a few minutes ago, and it’s really nasty out there.”

  “How did the skiing look, Simon?” Sophie asked.

  “Great. Big mountain. Perfect slopes. Everyone else in the world will get to ski here except me.”

  “Don’t be so dramatic, Simon,” Maggie said. “I’m sure you’ll be able to ski when it’s safe.”

  “But it’s safe now,” Simon whined. “I’ve skied in way worse weather.”

  “End of discussion,” Mr. Kim said. “Now let’s see if we can get that old fireplace going.”